


London Particular

by roboticonography



Series: Flames 'verse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Deleted Scenes, Gen, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticonography/pseuds/roboticonography
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A "deleted scene" from Chapter 4 of Flames We Never Lit, based on a prompt on Tumblr. Pepper and Peggy go to Starbucks after their shopping trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	London Particular

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was: write a funny drabble about one character trying to cheer another up.
> 
> I think I fail at drabbles. And at funny.
> 
> In the novel _Bleak House_ by Charles Dickens one of the characters refers to fog as "a London particular," a phrase which then passed into the common Victorian vernacular. I needed a title and that seemed as good a one as any. ;)

 Pepper wasn’t quite sure who or what she’d been expecting from Tony’s description of Margaret Carter.

 

She’d been surprised by this strong, strident woman, who had apparently broken Steve Rogers’ heart once upon a time, and who spoke as though the loss of almost seventy years were merely a trifling inconvenience.

 

This was Peggy’s first public outing since 1946, and the only direction Pepper had received was to take her shopping for clothes and “entertain” her for the rest of the afternoon, all at Tony’s expense. The shopping had been easy—Pepper had been able to get the measure of Peggy’s style almost immediately—but the entertainment had left her at something of a loss.

 

“Is there anything else you’d like to do?” she inquired, resisting the urge to pull out her phone. She didn’t think a search on 1940s pastimes could possibly yield anything productive, and Peggy had already expressed her brusque disapproval of the way modern people seemed preoccupied with their mobile devices. “I could see about getting tickets to a play… we could go to a movie…?”

 

Peggy was taking the first sip of her drink, pursing her lips carefully to avoid marring the perfect glossy finish of her new lipstick. “Honestly, there isn’t anything. You’ve been so…” She trailed off, and drank again, more slowly.

 

Pepper leaned forward solicitously. “It’s okay?”

 

Peggy smiled. It changed her entire face—made her seem less forbidding, warmer. Younger, somehow. “It’s absolutely marvellous. What is it?”

 

“Earl Grey tea with vanilla and steamed milk.” Pepper felt her ears turning pink. “It’s called a—a London Fog,” she said, trying not to sound quite so abashed.

 

Peggy nodded in apparent approval. “It’s the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve had milk that hasn’t been like water.”

 

“I asked them to make it with whole milk,” said Pepper, relieved that at least she’d been able to get that right.

 

Peggy looked faintly horrified. “Then what in blazes have I been drinking?” she demanded. “Quarter-milk? One-eighth-milk?”

 

Pepper schooled her features into a mask of polite neutrality.

 

“It’s all right,” said Peggy, unexpectedly gentle. “You can laugh. It was meant to be funny.”

 

Pepper cracked a smile.

 

“You’d think they’d do the decent thing and give the good milk to the hospitals,” continued Peggy. “Still, I suppose it could be worse. At least it’s not the powdered stuff.”

 

“Milk with less fat is supposed to be better for you,” said Pepper. She watched Peggy struggle with the logic of this for a moment.

 

“It doesn’t sound as though medical science has made any great strides,” she pronounced. Then, more meditatively: “No wonder I’m wasting away.”


End file.
